Check out this cool video wall my son, Rick, just installed at Safe Credit Union’s corporate offices. Six 40-inchers!

We spent Sunday evening with good friends enjoying Sisko’s excellent chili, Michael’s choice cigars and some fine Napa Valley red wines. The “guy talk” eventually rolled around to how as kids we’d all made rubber band guns — pretty much a piece of wood with a handle and a wooden clothes pin attached to the back or top to hold a stretched rubber band — and how seldom we see kids making them today. It’s probably the fault of merchandising. The unfortunate result? Kids are no longer satisfied with “home made”, not when they can buy this…

…which, of course, leads to this when they need more firepower.

You know, technology is great, but I think our simple “single round” shooters were more fun, easier to make, cost less and, if a “part” broke, we just replaced the firing mechanism (clothes pin) or made a whole new gun! Kids today miss the joy of building something from nothing using only their imaginations, ingenuity and sense of discovery.

…What’s the first thing you’re going to do?

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My brudda-from-anudda-mudda, Michael, and I have exchanged some good natured ribbing over Dawn’s and my conversion a few months ago to what we affectionately call pescevegetarianism - like vegetarianism only we include fish in our diet - while Michael remains a hopelessly devout carnivore. So I’ll probably draw fire from him over this Dan Piraro cartoon Dawn clipped for me the other day…

I’m licking my political wounds today, but I’m resilient and will be back in harness tomorrow. The rest of the nation’s disappointed, conservative minority should also put away their armor and try to make the best of the hand we’ve been dealt. The election may not have gone the way we’d hoped, but it’s time to put aside our differences and work together toward the common good.

To my conservative friends, remember that whining isn’t becoming and won’t make you feel any better. Obama didn’t “steal” the election; he ran a superior campaign taking full advantage of the public’s discontent with Bush.

And to my liberal friends, gloating is bad form as well. It was a well fought campaign and your guy won. Congratulations.

This election is now history. We’ll suit up and hit it again in about four years.

Watch the 2008 presidential results roll in

View the electoral vote count and the congressional balance of power on the active national U.S. map below, updated every two minutes, via MSNBC. As soon as either McCain or Obama is declared the winner, you’ll know!

Lori sent photos of grandson Dakota and his date, Alyx, at Ponderosa High School’s Homecoming a couple weekends ago. He’s growing up so fast! And don’t they make a cute couple?

From Jeff…

Quasimoto’s comment earlier today asking why I believe Barack Obama to be be a Marxist and racist convinced me to break the promise I made to myself to abstain from posting any more about the Presidential election. So here’s my last contribution on the matter.

I’m pretty sure everyone’s heard the audio clips of sermons by Reverend Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. Before Wright’s retirement in May, ABC News highlighted the racist and America-hating rhetoric in his sermons and questioned Barrack Obama’s 20+ years as not only a member of the church but a close personal friend of Wright’s. Obama at first shrugged it off but, when the issue wouldn’t go away, he “denounced” a few months ago, not Wright, but the hateful things Wright believes and preaches. Kind of like divorce is handled in some primitive countries: “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you. There. We’re divorced. Let’s move on.”

The press, not wanting to rain on Obama’s parade, moved on. But it is what it is and, for many, the long relationship suggests that Obama may, like Wright, be racist and anti-American. I don’t think such a logical conclusion, shared by many, or at the very least a valid and unresolved concern, can be ignored.

As for Obama’s Marxist statements, they too are a matter of public record. But to recognize them, you need to understand the teachings of Karl Marx. Among the principal tenants of Marxism are that capitalism, the system of social production for private profit, is the enemy of working people, and that class struggle is the motor force of history with workers being the only class with power, knowledge and interest in aligning with other oppressed groups to create a new egalitarian society based on sharing socially created wealth. In a Marxist/Communist society, wealth is redistributed “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

Obama has said publicly that the Warren Supreme Court, considered by most historians to have been the most radical in our history, was not radical enough because it failed to address the redistribution of wealth from the “haves” to the “have nots”, and that we will not have “fairness” until we achieve that redistribution. He says further that it is too cumbersome to achieve redistribution via the courts but that it can be achieved legislatively. That, my friends, is Marxism, and coupled with socialists already in positions of power within our Legislature (Reid and Pelosi among them), an Obama presidency could move us further, perhaps irreversibly, into socialism. That should scare the devil out of all of us.

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And the reason, Quasimoto, that Obama has “gotten to be a Senator or gotten nominated to be president” is that too many citizens choose to believe that, if these things are true, “someone else” would have/should have stopped Obama’s progress to this point. But that’s just not the way it works anymore. We’ve become a lazy society of “sheeple”, expecting “someone else” to do all the heavy lifting. And when “someone else” fails to come through for us, we draw our opinions and make our decisions based on superficial criteria and emotional responses. Worse yet, we even allow ourselves to be influenced by comedy TV. We can’t efficiently govern ourselves that way.

So my question is, knowing what we know, how can anyone in good conscience ignore these issues or cast a vote in spite of them? Don’t like McCain? Fine, I get it. But come on, that’s no reason to vote for socialism.

Okay, I’d told myself I wasn’t going to talk about the election any more and I’ve done it anyway. All I can say is, people will do what they choose. I just wish they did more of their own homework and cast their votes based on things more substantive than “he looks more presidential” or “I just don’t like McCain”.

Got this yesterday from Mike…

Pinocchio, Snow White and Superman are out for a stroll in town one day when they come across a sign that reads, “Most Beautiful Woman in the World Contest.”

“I’m entering,” says Snow White.

After half an hour, she rejoins the others. “Well, how’d ya do?”

“First Place”, replies Snow White.

As they continue walking, they come upon another sign that reads, “Strongest Man in the World Contest.”

“I’m entering!” declares Superman. When he returns half an hour later, the others ask, “So how’d ya make out?”

“First Place,” answers Superman.

Continuing their stroll, they soon come upon another sign that reads, “World’s Greatest Liar Contest?”

Pinocchio exclaims, “I’m entering!” After about thirty minutes, he returns with tears in his eyes.

“What happened, Pinocchio? Didn’t you win?” they ask.

Drying his eyes, Pinocchio blubbers, “Who the heck is ‘Obama’?”

Talk about a rudder throw! Mike sent this with the notation, “And you think you’re a good pilot… whew!”

Impressive, but to be honest, Mike, I think it’s “CG” trickery. For one thing, right after the starboard wing “falls off”, the plane begins to spiral (counterclockwise) “into” the remaining wing which, I believe, would be aerodynamically impossible. In addition, and this is purely speculative, the plane looks a little “wrong” when it first lands, a little too “CG”. I’ll do some research into it, but you’re a pilot; what do you think?

Anyone else have an opinion?

It’s been a hectic year and Dawn and I are sorely in need of some rest and relaxation, so we’re taking next week off. That means no posting until we return and I finish the installation of our new computer (it’s coming along nicely, but transferring data files from the old system has been problematic since some appear to be corrupted). Hopefully we’ll return refreshed and ready to tackle the myriad projects screaming for our attention.

Meanwhile, why not leaf through the Archives? There are bound to be posts you missed.

See you in about a week!

For those of you wondering why IM has been “quiet” the last few days, the reason is twofold: first, it’s been a hectic month with so much going on I haven’t had much time for blogging. It’s just as well, because my primary computer has been complaining that its drive is overloaded, it’s suffering from a software conflict, or worse. Since I don’t want to court disaster, blogging has been more or less suspended until I install a new iMac, hopefully by the middle of next week. So bear with me, gentile readers. IM will be up and running as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, here’s a quickie from Mike…

Two Iraqi spies met in a busy restaurant after successfully slipping into the U.S.

The first spy starts speaking in Arabic.

The second spy shushes him quickly and whispers, “Don’t blow our cover! You’re in America now! Speak Spanish!”

Enjoy the weekend! See you next week!

Total time spent online is up 24.3%. At least that’s the conclusion reached by Jay Meattle after, I assume, conducting a thorough study. To graphically illustrate his conclusion, Jay provided this handy graph but neglected to mention the source data used in its construction. Perhaps it’s provided elsewhere on his site. Nonetheless, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt since we all sort of assume that we spend too much time online and, after all, it’s a pretty impressive graph. Check it out:

From the graph and presumably the data it depicts, Jay concludes:

“We are spending more and more time consuming information online. Logically, since time is finite, online advertising spend[ing] should follow a similar trajectory with marketers allocating their ad budgets in proportion to where people are spending their time.

Needless to say, this is a time of considerable opportunity for online media properties and online marketers!”

Well, sure. But shouldn’t we at least consider what kinds of online activity are included in the data? I mean, I think we can all agree that a great many people use the internet as their primary news source. My readers (ahem) probably fall into this group. If they weren’t online, they would be reading Time or Newsweek in paper format thereby contributing to deforestation. So let’s classify them as “green” onliners. And some are online to post the aforementioned news stories, also “green” onliners but sub-categorized as “producers” vs. “consumers”.

Then there are ‘net “surfers”, free spirits who simply ride the internet waves in search of the next “big one” but contribute little beyond clever cryptic comments like “Awesome dude” and “LOL”. If they weren’t online, they would be watching cable TV or skateboarding…

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Thanks James!